Provenance Research Research Articles

The Provenance of a Silver Vajrasattva and the Loudon Family

Using historical source material to reconstruct the origin and collecting history of a statuette of a vajrasattva owned by the Loudon family – now in the possession of the Rijksmuseum and selected to be part of the Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era – gives us insights into the function of such objects within particular social groups such as the European colonial elite in Indonesia (to which the Loudon family belonged), the functioning of Dutch (colonial) society and the development of cultural knowledge about the colonized population. This is, however, a limited perspective. It ignores other points of view: it largely excludes the knowledge and insights of the local population, the meanings the object has had for them in the past and present, and people’s agency in these European collecting and knowledge production processes.

The Diamond from Banjarmasin: A Story in Facets

This article tells the socio-political life story of the Banjarmasin diamond that is on display in the Rijksmuseum’s nineteenth-century colonial room. How the diamond came into the possession of the Dutch in 1859 was not entirely clear, although both in the Netherlands and in Indonesia it is cited as a typical example of ‘war booty’ and ‘looted art’. It is therefore used in debates about contemporary identity formation, like the Dutch approach to their violent colonial past and Indonesian post-colonial nation building. But the stone has more to tell: stories about war and violent subjugation, about resistance and the co-optation of the local rulers, about trade and monopolization and about colonial pretension. On the basis of a provenance report written as part of the Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era, this article aims to shed more light on various moments in the diamond’s life story, from mining to exhibition. This also makes it clear that the present-day debate about its painful history and its possible restitution to Indonesia will be not the conclusion but a brand-new chapter in the diamond’s long socio-political history.

A Knowledge Behavioral and Intelligence Management in Fostering Entrepreneurship for Modern Industries

The major goal of this work is to investigate the relation between management strategic intelligence (SI), organizational Development (OD), and Entrepreneurial Behavior (EB) in government agencies in developing nations. In a larger sense, while knowledge and experience have separate effects on an entrepreneur's decision-making process and behavior, there have been no proven research on how similar characteristics affected decisions and behaviors during the entrepreneurial transition. The influence of knowledge and experience was investigated in this study. The C-square test indicated that knowledge and experience are statistically relevant for entrepreneurs, demonstrating vision, independence, achievement, and responsiveness, using the smart approach for data collecting and analysis. This research focused on business decisions have been made.  The indirect impact demonstrates that supervisors combination of knowledge management, emotional intelligence, and entrepreneurial abilities has a statistically favorable influence on organizational innovation. This technique contributes to the scientific as well as economic consequences. Scientific impact, in the form of new knowledge that reinforces the value of executives as innovation catalysts; and a new socio-economic management tool to improve the socio-economic impact, human systematic innovation helix, knowledge management skills, socio-emotional skills, and business skills of executives. Companies. This effort has increased understanding of the influence of delayed or postponed action on your business growth decisions.

Provenance research today: Principles, practice, problemsBy ArthurTompkins (Ed.), Lund Humphries.2020. 224 pages. £29.99

Provenance research today: Principles, practice, problemsBy ArthurTompkins (Ed.), Lund Humphries.2020. 224 pages. £29.99

Spatial Distribution, Material Composition and Provenance of Loess in Xinjiang, China: Progress and Challenges

The loess in the arid area of Xinjiang is located at the eastern end of the Central Asia Loess Belt, and paleoclimate research about it is of great importance for understanding the mechanism of interaction of the Eurasian Westerly monsoon system and the aridity of Central Asia. This review focuses on recent progress concerning the spatial distribution, material composition and provenance of loess in Xinjiang and points out the shortcomings of and challenges to provenance and dust circulation. Field investigation and previous studies indicate that loess sediments have been mainly distributed on the river terraces and windward piedmont of the Tianshan Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains since the late Pliocene (mainly late Pleistocene). Grain size and age data show that Xinjiang loess deposits at some locations are rapid and discontinuous or sedimentary hiatus. The Siberian High system largely controlled dust mobilization and loess accumulation in northern Xinjiang but not southern Xinjiang. In southern Central Asia, the intensity of dust activity may be determined by the Caspian Sea–Hindu Kush Index (CasHKI) and local circulation. However, there is not enough evidence that the CasHKI index can affect the Tarim Basin area. Consequently, ascertaining the driving mechanism of mid-latitude Westerly winds and the dynamic process of loess deposition in Xinjiang is a specific suggestion for critical future research. Many indicators have shown that the loess dust sources in Xinjiang are composed of mainly proximal materials plus some remote materials. Alluvial plains and local proluvial fans contributed more to loess deposition, while Central Asian deserts comprise a small proportion of loess deposition in northern Xinjiang. In future provenance research, new technologies and new methods should be continuously tested to facilitate an objective understanding of the provenance of the loess in Xinjiang.

Bones and injustices: provenance research, restitutions and identity politics

The last decade has witnessed increasing numbers of “provenance research” projects investigating the histories of human remains in academic collections and leading to their restitution. Such projects explicitly and implicitly address the historical injustices and their continuities of amassing people’s mortal remains and their subsequent use by those who have appropriated them. This article considers which historical wrongdoings provenance research and restitutions attempt to address and how effective they are in doing so. Firstly, the article points towards the relatively effective recognition of spiritual and emotional injustice. Secondly, it discusses the limited recognition of “race science’s” history and legacies and of its logic’s persistence in a social essentialism that inheres in contemporary handling of such human remains. Thirdly, it discusses how recognition of past oppression, dispossession and exploitation ties to broader political goals and attempts at redistribution.

Informative Storytelling with Provenance Research Sources

Provenance has underpinned archival practice in America across the past century, guiding archivists in the arrangement, description, and accessioning of new and legacy collections. Provenance research is a necessary step taken to secure pending donations and title information, and ultimately tell the story of the object’s journey to the current possessor. Across four domains of key interest in the “Developing Extensible Methods for Provenance Research” project, we examine source-specific methods that are most useful to practitioners, and communicate them in an open educational resource (OER) meant to broaden access and awareness of provenance research among administrators and students engaging with collections. Our poster will demonstrate how archival workers seek and then combine information laboriously gathered from photographs, legal documents, and handwritten materials among other resources in creative, inventive, and engaging ways that invite visitors into stories that the objects – if only they are displayed – can tell about our shared pasts and futures. Such information sources can serve a multitude of stakeholder goals, e.g. employing datapoints about transfers and handoffs to encourage object-based learning, transparency, and accountability.

Informative Storytelling with Provenance Research Sources

Provenance has underpinned archival practice in America across the past century, guiding archivists in the arrangement, description, and accessioning of new and legacy collections. Provenance research is a necessary step taken to secure pending donations and title information, and ultimately tell the story of the object’s journey to the current possessor. Across four domains of key interest in the “Developing Extensible Methods for Provenance Research” project, we examine source-specific methods that are most useful to practitioners, and communicate them in an open educational resource (OER) meant to broaden access and awareness of provenance research among administrators and students engaging with collections. Our poster will demonstrate how archival workers seek and then combine information laboriously gathered from photographs, legal documents, and handwritten materials among other resources in creative, inventive, and engaging ways that invite visitors into stories that the objects – if only they are displayed – can tell about our shared pasts and futures. Such information sources can serve a multitude of stakeholder goals, e.g. employing datapoints about transfers and handoffs to encourage object-based learning, transparency, and accountability.

Examining Transparency, Due Diligence, and Digital Inclusion as Resilient Values for Provenance Research Work

ABSTRACTIn response to the rising calls for transparency in displaying collections information, an ongoing research project is developing and studying provenance research methods in four domains, which cross museum and archive settings and their legal oversight in the United States: art collections (furthermore colonial era and Nazi‐looted era), special collections and manuscripts, Native and Indigenous research, and local or rural history collections. We illustrate three resilient values underpinning successful or at least informative provenance research: transparency, due diligence, and digital inclusion. Together the values, when practiced further, will guide information professionals towards researching collections provenance more effectively according to internal and public‐facing goals.

World War II Art Restitution Exhibitions


 
 
 Art history is about more than just the works of art that are currently on display in art galleries and museums. It is also about all the works that have been lost, stolen, or destroyed due to tumultuous chapters in human history. One of the largest chapters in human history to affect art history were the events of World War II. In order to help heal the wounds caused by this war, art historians and museum professionals across Europe and North America have dedicated their time to provenance research in order to begin processes of restitution. Two museums that have allocated time and money for provenance research and art restitution are the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. This paper will examine these two museums and the exhibitions that resulted from their provenance research, as well as their restitution and repatriation work. By exploring the efforts made by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, one is given a glimpse into how art historians and museum professionals can help make amends with those affected by tragedy.
 
 

Complementing Connoisseurship With Artificial Intelligence

AbstractThough humanistic in spirit and scholarship, the practice of art history has long recognized the value of science‐based investigative techniques, particularly for questions involving artwork authentication. Modes of investigation now include analysis of chemical composition and physical structure in addition to the traditional principles of connoisseurship and provenance research. We propose the use of a new tool − convolutional neural networks − to extend scientific analysis to the visual features of two‐dimensional artwork. Trained on the works of an artist under study and visually comparable works of other artists, our system can identify forgeries and propose attributions. It can also assign classification probabilities within a work, revealing mixed authorship and identifying the contributions of different hands. We describe and illustrate performance in connection with Old Master paintings and drawings. With one interesting exception, our system's attributions match those of authoritative experts for paintings whose authorship has been the subject of longstanding controversy. Although computational, our approach supplements and depends on human expertise in judging an artwork's authenticity and lived history.

Envisioning networked provenance data storytelling with American cuneiform collections

Cuneiform tablets remain founding cornerstones of two hundred plus collections in American academic institutions, having been acquired a century or more ago under dynamic ethical norms and global networks. To foster data sharing, this contribution incorporates empirical data from interactive ArcGIS and reusable OpenContext maps to encourage tandem dialogues about using the inscribed works and learning their collecting histories. Such provenance research aids, on their own, initiate the narration of objects’ journeys over time while cultivating the digital inclusion of expert local knowledge relevant to an object biography. The paper annotates several approaches institutions are or might consider using to expand upon current provenance information in ways that encourage visitors’ critical thinking and learning about global journeys, travel archives, and such dispositions as virtual reunification, reconstructions, or restitution made possible by the provenance research.

100 × Congo: A Century of Congolese Art in Antwerp

100 × Congo: A Century of Congolese Art in Antwerp

Studying domain structure: a comparative analysis of bibliographic coupling analysis and co-citation analysis considering all authors

PurposeThis paper focuses on the differences in domain intellectual structure discovery between author bibliographic coupling analysis (ABCA) and author co-citation analysis (ACA) considering all authors. The purpose of this study is to examine whether and in what ways these two all-author network approaches yield different results.Design/methodology/approachThe sample was collected from the database of Web of Science, including all articles published in Scientometrics and Journal of Informetrics from 2011 to 2020. First, 100 representative authors were selected from each set, and ABCA matrices and ACA matrices were constructed. Second, factor analysis was carried out on the matrices, to detect the intellectual structure of scientometrics and informetrics.FindingsThe intellectual structures identified by ABCA and ACA are similar overall, but the results differ somewhat when it comes to specific structures. The ABCA is more sensitive to some highly collaborative research teams and presents a clearer picture of current intellectual structures and trends while ACA seems to have some advantages in representing the more traditional and proven research topics in the field. The combined use of ABCA and ACA allows for a more comprehensive and specific intellectual structure of research fields.Originality/valueThis paper compares the performance of ABCA and ACA detecting the intellectual structure of the domain from the perspective of all authors, revealing the intellectual structure of scientometrics and informetrics comprehensively.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2020-0540.

Apatites Record Sedimentary Provenance Change 4–5 Myrs Before Clay in the Oligocene/Miocene Alpine Molasse

Extracting information about past tectonic or climatic environmental changes from sedimentary records is a key objective of provenance research. Interpreting the imprint of such changes remains challenging as signals might be altered in the sediment-routing system. We investigate the sedimentary provenance of the Oligocene/Miocene Upper Austrian Northern Alpine Foreland Basin and its response to the tectonically driven exhumation of the Tauern Window metamorphic dome (28 ± 1 Ma) in the Eastern European Alps by using the unprecedented combination of Nd isotopic composition of bulk-rock clay-sized samples and partly previously published multi-proxy (Nd isotopic composition, trace-element geochemistry, U-Pb dating) sand-sized apatite single-grain analysis. The basin offers an excellent opportunity to investigate environmental signal propagation into the sedimentary record because comprehensive stratigraphic and seismic datasets can be combined with present research results. The bulk-rock clay-sized fraction εNd values of well-cutting samples from one well on the northern basin slope remained stable at ∼−9.7 from 27 to 19 Ma but increased after 19 Ma to ∼−9.1. In contrast, apatite single-grain distributions, which were extracted from 22 drill-core samples, changed significantly around 23.3 Ma from apatites dominantly from low-grade (<upper amphibolite-facies) metamorphic sources with Permo-Mesozoic and late Variscan U-Pb ages and εNd values of −4.4 to dominantly high-grade metamorphic apatites with late Variscan U-Pb ages and εNd values of −2.2. The change in apatite single-grain distributions at 23.3 Ma is interpreted to result from the exposure of a new Upper Austroalpine source nappe with less negative εNd values triggered by the ongoing Tauern Window exhumation. Combining these data with the clay-sized bulk-rock εNd values reveals that the provenance changed 4–5 Myrs later at 19 Ma in the clay-sized fraction. Reasons for the delayed provenance-change recording are rooted in the characteristics of the applied methods. Whereas single-grain distributions of orogen-wide sediment-routing systems can be dominated by geographically small areas with high erosion and mineral fertility rates, bulk-rock methods integrate over the entire drainage basin, thus diminishing extreme values. Hence, by combining these two methods, spatial information are uncovered, enabling a previously unattained understanding of the underlying environmental change.

Assessment of Easily Accessible Spectroscopic Techniques Coupled with Multivariate Analysis for the Qualitative Characterization and Differentiation of Earth Pigments of Various Provenance

Natural minerals and earths with coloring properties have been widely used as artistic pigments since prehistoric times. Despite being extensively studied, the complex chemistry of earth pigments is still unsatisfactory described with respect to their mineralogical and structural variability and origin. In this study, a large group of earth pigments from various geographical locations was investigated using easily accessible spectroscopic techniques and multivariate analysis with the aim to identify distinctive mineralogical and chemical characteristics of natural pigment sources. Portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and fiberoptic Raman spectroscopy were used for the elemental, molecular and structural characterization of the investigated pigments. Diagnostic spectral features and chemical patterns (fingerprints) were identified and discussed with respect to their geological sources. Due to the occurrence of similar accompanying minerals, it was observed that the differentiation of red and yellow ochers is more challenging compared to green, brown and black pigments. However, for some of the investigated pigments, the presence of certain accessory minerals and/or of certain chemical patterns can have diagnostic value. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the FTIR and XRF data matrices showed promising results in terms of geological attribution, highlighting a promising tool for provenance research. The results of the study demonstrate the potential benefits of this rapid and nondestructive approach for the characterization and differentiation of earth pigments with similar hues coming from different geological sources.

Provenance of Early Late Ordovician marine carbonate red beds in the Tarim Block and implication for tectonic evolution of northern Gondwana

As the largest oil-bearing basin in northwest China, the Tarim basin records multiple major tectonic-sedimentary transitions during the Early Paleozoic, which play an important role in understanding assembly processes of Gondwana. An important transition from the Middle to Late Ordovician was development of important unconformity T74, the end of a unified carbonate platform, and development of turbidites in eastern basin. However, due to unobvious terrigenous clastic record, there is still a lack of understanding of driving mechanism of the tectonic transition. Marine carbonate red beds (MCRBs) with detritus components are developed in the Tumuxiuke/Kanling Formation at the bottom of the Upper Ordovician. By detailed field observation, zircon U-Pb dating and Hf-isotope analyses, provenance and the tectonic implication of the MCRBs are studied. New zircon U-Pb dating results constrain the depositional age of the MCRBs at ca. 454Ma. Provenance tracing shows the Precambrian detrital zircons were mainly sourced from the basement of the Tarim block, and the early Late Ordovician detrital zircons were probably derived from ash from the Altyun Tagh orogenic belt. Based on syn-depositional magmatic zircon records and the magmatic-metamorphic records in the Altyn Tagh orogenic belt, the closure age of North Altyn Ocean, one branch of Proto-Tethys Ocean, can be constrained to the latest Middle Ordovician (~ca. 460 Ma). The collison of the Tarim block with the Central Altyn terrane occurred (ca. 460 Ma - 454 Ma), leading to the major tectonic-sedimentary transition in the Tarim block. The U-Pb age spectrum of detrital zircons also indicates that the Tarim block is closely related to the North Indian block in Gondwana. This study shows that carbonate rocks with low clastic flux can be applied as provenance research objects.

Provenance in nineteenth-century Europe. Research practice and concept

Provenance – an object’s history of ownership – is a historically contingent concept and research practice that emerged in nineteenth-century Europe. In a novel project examining the cases of Beda Dudík (Moravia/Austria), Carl Schirren (Livonia/Russia), and Franz Hipler (Warmia/East Prussia) ca. 1850–1900 I argue that, while the art market and nationalism are important, scholars representing regions with a suppressed past and present are key to understanding the relevance of provenance. Due to seventeenth-century plundering, these scholars were dependent on foreign archives and libraries when researching their regions’ history. Their publications describing provenance research are the project’s main sources. The analysis of these publications targets practices such as classification, a crucial tool as determined provenance equaled historical existence. Merging regional inferiority and transnational dependencies, diverse institutional settings, and political, religious, and scholarly ambitions, scrutinizing these cases reveals the needs and encounters that explain the rise of provenance.

Assessing the preservation of biogenic strontium isotope ratios (87 Sr/86 Sr) in the pars petrosa ossis temporalis of unburnt human skeletal remains: A case study from Saba.

RationaleStrontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of skeletal remains has become a powerful tool in archaeological studies of human migration and mobility. Owing to its resistance to post‐mortem alteration, dental enamel is the preferred sampling material used for 87Sr/86Sr analysis in bioarchaeological provenance research, although recent studies have demonstrated that cremated bone is also generally resistant to diagenesis. This paper presents the results of a pilot study exploring the potential of unburnt petrous bone (pars petrosa) as a reservoir of biogenic (diagenetically unaltered) strontium, as the otic capsule or bony labyrinth within the petrous bone is extremely dense and is thought to be unable to remodel after early childhood, potentially providing an alternative for dental enamel.MethodsFrom an individual from a colonial‐era (18th century) site on the island of Saba in the Caribbean for whom previous enamel 87Sr/86Sr results had indicated non‐local origins, multiple locations (n = 4) on the petrous were sampled and measured for strontium isotope composition. Saba (13 km2) has been extensively mapped for baseline strontium isotopes (n = 50) with 87Sr/86Sr varying from ca 0.7065 to 0.7090, whereas enamel 87Sr/86Sr (n = 3) ranged from 0.7104 to 0.7112.ResultsAll four petrous 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7111–0.7122) are consistently and considerably higher than the local bioavailable range, and very similar to the enamel 87Sr/86Sr. These results provide initial evidence that unburnt petrous bones may preserve biogenic strontium, at least in this specific burial context.ConclusionsWhile more research in diverse burial conditions is needed to validate this observation, if confirmed, it would have broader implications for sample selection strategies in bioarchaeological studies using the strontium isotope method.

Book Ownership in Stuart England. The Lyell Lectures, 2018. By David Pearson

This book comes hard on the heels of the revised edition of David Pearson’s Provenance Research in Book History. It is composed of a series of expository chapters, followed by an annotated list of 1,374 individuals known to have owned at least one book. For anyone wishing to learn more about a private book owner in the period, it will surely be the first port of call, if they have not already consulted Pearson’s database Book Owners Online, which contains a vast amount of further information. So disparate a body of people presents considerable challenges of organization. In his census, Pearson has divided themes according to the occupations of different groups: academics, businessmen and tradesmen, clergy (Anglican and nonconformist), lawyers, gentry, etc. Among these are one gardener (George London, chief gardener to Queen Anne) and four astrologers. There are only two yeomen/farmers, the well-known Browne family of Townend...